Geauga Parks will not collect part of tax money for one year

The Geauga Parks District Budget Commission voted this week not to collect a portion of the money residents agreed to give them in 2015.
The rare move was made Aug. 25 after that commission considered a $9 million projected surplus by the end of 2015.
The levy — which was originally passed in 1986 and renewed in 2005 — runs through 2025. It generates $880,232 a year and costs residents $8.48 annually per $100,000 property valuation, according to the Auditor’s Office.
The parks have the ability to restore the levy collection after the year suspension.
The budget commission on Aug. 18 submitted a letter requesting the suspension to the three-member Geauga County Park Board, according to Paige Orvis, the park district’s director of marketing and administrative services.
She said because there is a strategic plan in place for the future of the parks, a one-year suspension was deemed appropriate.
At that same meeting Geauga County Probate/Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell, who appointed Brian Johnston, Lou Mucci and Mary Ruth Shumway as park board commissioners, submitted his recommendation to suspend the collection.
Grendell told The News-Herald on Wednesday evening that the budget commission doesn’t have to ask the park board to suspend the levy and can do that on its own authority.
He said the suspension was in line with what Ohio Revised Code and the Ohio Constitution specify against hoarding excess funds.
He also pointed to an Ohio Attorney General opinion and several appeals court cases as well as an auditor’s office recommendation.
“When you look at what the auditor’s office says, you’re only supposed to carry over three months worth of operating capital,” he said.
Three months of operating costs would be $1.4 million, Grendell said.
“Even without that $880,000 that’s being suspended, it is expected that in Dec. 2015 the park district will have about $8.4 million,” he said.
John Oros, interim director of the park board, asked the commission this week to suspend the 1986 levy for six months but the budget commission informed him it could not do a half-year suspension because of taxpayers who pay in whole-year increments.
There are two 1-mill park district levies — a 2000 general fund levy that expires in 2019 and a 2013 construction fund levy that expires in 2032 — that will allow the county to continue to collect more than $5.3 million a year in taxes.
“There’s a lot of government entities in Ohio that I’m sure have excess,” he said. “The (Ohio) constitution allows you to collect for operation services, not to store it up for a cold winter. I applaud the budget commission for taking the initiative to recognize the cases like this.”
He said he has been notified of concerns that this motion disenfranchises the voters who approved the levy.
“This is all part of the same framework to make sure there’s not a hoarding of dollars.”

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